Monkey Business in the Classroom

Newsweek‘s magazine for college students, Current, features an interesting article, “Monkey Business,” on the campus presence of students who do not accept evolution. It’s worth a look. Writer Victoria Bosch, a senior at Penn State University, reports:

Each year, students who are not convinced by evolution enter college classrooms. These students are often nervous about how their beliefs will affect their grades in natural science courses. Their backgrounds are varied; many who believe in creationism or intelligent design describe themselves as evangelical Christians, like Scott, but others are Muslim, agnostic, or even atheist. Some think the Biblical explanation of the beginning of life is literally accurate, that life began in the days after an omnipotent god created the Earth. Others think that life began with small organisms and that the evolutionary process that did occur with our development was guided by a deity. Still others think that evolutionary theory lacks the necessary support to make it believable.

Here’s an interesting paragraph: Though there are few firm statistics, it is clear that not everyone with a university degree hanging on the wall believes in evolution. A CBS News poll released in October 2005 stated that 15 percent of all Americans believe that humans evolved without the guidance of a god; other respondents believe either that humans evolved with God’s guidance or that humans were created by God in their present form. The numbers alter only slightly among Americans with at least one college degree, 24 percent of whom believe in evolution. Young Americans are more likely to believe in evolution, possibly a result of a 1987 Supreme Court ruling that forbade public schools from teaching creationism as fact. Even so, large numbers of students on college campuses remain ill at ease with their professors’ assertions that the world dates back to the Big Bang, not to the Garden of Eden.

The article is fair and balanced, and worth a read.